The nation's best known climate-change scientist is NASA's Jim Hansen. He is, to be sure, a bit extreme on the subject, calling coal-fired power plants "death factories'' and coal trains "death trains.''

Here is one of his quotes: "If we cannot stop the building of more coal-fired power plants, those coal trains will be death trains — no less gruesome than if they were boxcars headed to crematoria, loaded with uncountable irreplaceable species.''

Comparing the OUC coal train to boxcars filled with Holocaust victims is highly offensive. But hey, he did it in the name of climate change so the media gave him a pass. .

Hansen also has called for the CEOs of ExxonMobil and Peabody Coal to be put on trial for "high crimes against humanity and nature.''

I appreciate a passion. But this certainly raises questions about his scientific objectivity and state of mind. That he is America's leading voice on climate change is disturbing to say the least.

OK, technically it's not broken. But if you do not get in row one at the entrance, you will be in either the middle or bottom row when the "hang gliders'' lift up. This means you will see dangling feet from the row above you, ruining the immersion experience.

And that's too bad because it's a great ride, although the scenes shift too abruptly.

I assume it would be impractical to separate the three rows of gliders enough to do away with this problem. But it seems Disney could come up with some kind of pliable flap that flops down when the gliders go up, sized just enough to cover the dangling feet. The only reason I see for not doing this is that it would cut off a tiny sliver of the top of the screen. But what good is looking at that anyway when you're looking through Nikes?

The latest hotel occupancy numbers are dismal. For the week 2/8 – 2/14, occupancy on I-Drive has dropped a whopping 21 percent with average room rates down almost 20 percent.

I talked to a vendor who services hotels. He told me that some owners simply are ready to hand over the keys to the bank and walk away.

What we are going to see is a growing number of boarded-up hotels by the end of the year, their numbers on I-Drive increasing the farther you get from the convention center. I hope the county, city and tourism people have a plan on dealing with this.

The idea of funding the performing arts center and Citrus Bowl renovation has become almost farcical, but we still must do our duty and write about the twists and turns. In a de-leveraged economy, a city the size of Orlando can not afford to spend $175 million on a football stadium for three games a year.

That fantasy has to go away. But even with all resources focused on the arts center, that project is five years away at best. Even that could be wildly optimistic.

Charlie Crist has been using state legislators as unwitting props to advance his political popularity. What he does is play to the public by opposing tax cuts. When lawmakers then respond by slashing the budget, he then grandstands to save politically popular programs. This then creates bigger fiscal holes to fill down the road.

The public has about a 5-second attention span when it comes to Tallahassee.

All people see is a headline that Charlie wants more money for schools, or more money for buying environmental land. And that he is stopping the big, bad lawmakers from cutting it. Invariably the cuts do come, but that's beside the point. Charlie scored his points.

He is a master at this. And there is growing resentment among legislators over it.

While details of the plan still need to be hashed out, a refinancing provision leaves out people who owe 5 percent or more than the value of their house.

So if you owe $200,000 on a house worth $190,000, it could be tough luck. This hits Florida harder than most every other state because values here were so hyper-inflated during the bubble. I imagine most everybody who has bought since 2004 owes 5 percent more than the value of the house, unless they put a big downpayment down.

Maybe this will loosen up when the details are released. But should it?

Saying this drives the shark people nuts, particularly George Burgress, who operates the International Shark Attack File out of UF in Gainesville. They want to save sharks, as do I.

And so they attribute increases in shark attacks to the increased number of people in Florida.

But while there has been a worldwide decline in sharks because of over-fishing, such is not the case along Florida's Atlantic Coast, where blacktip and spinner sharks have staged quite a comeback after protected by fishing restrictions. The uptick in attacks began with the restrictions. But the shark people fear admitting this would lead to a call for bigger commercial catch limits.

You will see in the new 2008 numbers that despite an overall drop in shark attack numbers in 2008, which Burgess attributes mainly to the recession and fewer people in the water, the number of attacks in Volusia tied the record. One assumes Volusia had fewer people in the water also.

Would I go hunting sharks because of this? No. You go in the water, you take your chances.

Go to the Progress Energy Florida residential customer site. You can find it easy enough on Google by typing ''Progress Energy Florida residential'' in the search engine. There you can set up an account.

On the left hand side of the page, you will see a list of things you can click on..

Under energy usage, there are several options available to get an idea of how much energy you are using now compared to past months and years.

Particularly interesting is "Analysis details'' that gives you your energy use going back in time and comparing that to the average daily temperature of each month, along with the high and low temperature.

This allows you to gauge your conservation efforts. For example, this month I used a bare-bones 810 kilowatts of energy, which ties a record set in March 2008. When I compare temperature data, this past billing period was much cooler than March 08, so I'm doing pretty good. The reason is we threw extra blankets on the bed and wore sweaters.

Of course, the highest use months are the summer. I set a record burning through more than 2,000 KW in an Aug-Sept 2007. I know a lot of that was waste because I used several hundred kWh less in months with similar temperature readings.

This information also allows me to determine the effectiveness of attic and wall insulation I recently installed.

Also, if you don't know, the new electric meters are easy to read now, with a display of digital numbers. I wrote down the number to begin this billing cycle and will be tracking consumption.

You literally can turn on the AC or heat and watch your money burn.

Power bills are going up folks, up-up-up. You need to start doing this stuff.

Also, Progress does home energy audits and gives rebates for insulation. With where energy costs are heading, I highly recommend you consider this.